The Advantages Of Breastfeeding

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The Advantages of Breastfeeding Breastfeeding is the natural, physiological way to feed infants and young children. It should be easy and trouble free for most mothers. In fact, human milk is the milk made specifically for human infants. Even the formulas made from cow’s milk or soy beans cannot challenge or undermine the supremacy of breast milk. However, the breastfeeding rate among Malaysian mothers is still low. According to Health Ministry statistics, the rate of breastfeeding among Malaysian mothers is “very low” which is a mere 14.5% breastfeed their children up to six months (as cited in “Breastfeeding Rate Low Among Malaysian Mothers”, 2008). This is assigned to ignorance of the value of breast milk, misunderstandings about how breastfeeding works, and lack of support from family members. Moreover, the obsolete hospital routines based on bottle feeding still be widespread in many health care institutions and make breastfeeding difficult or even impossible for some mothers and babies. Therefore, the benefits of breastfeeding should have a great attention to the public especially to the mothers in order to make breastfeeding more and more appealing to them. Here I would like to highlight three advantages of breastfeeding. The first advantage is breastfeeding can be the first defence against obesity. Aside from dietary management and physical activity such as exercises, the precaution of obesity starts at birth through breastfeeding. Many researches show that babies who breast-fed are at lower risk of becoming obese, also being protected against high blood pressure and cholesterol. According to Dr Balkees Abdul Majid, breastfeeding has been shown to have an impact on obesity throughout the life span, while also contributing to numerous other positive health outcomes (The Star Online, 2011). Childhood obesity has serious psychological, social and

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